Down Dog Movie #Review

As I have mentioned before I love movies. I have recently expanded my blog to include posts about movies so when I was contacted with regards to reviewing the latest movie from the guys behind ‘Men behaving badly’ I HAD to say yes! Down Dog is a lad-to-dad story about Frank (Jason Durr) who has never quite grown up despite at one point being a husband and having a child.
After abandoning his wife and child to live a life that exclusively involved working hard, playing hard and womanising Frank Clayton lead designer at a “Dynamic, Mulit-media, cross-platform, pleasure delivery organisation” that sells “Personal Pleasure related recreational products” (Basically he works for a company that sells sex toys), has little to no relationship with his son Sam (Dylan Llewellyn). Sam grew up thinking his dad left because of him and now he’s struggling at school and also having difficulty talking to a girl he likes. His mum Rachel (Orla O’Rourke) tries her best to be supportive but tries to get Frank to grow up and help his son…..much to no avail. Through a conversation with Friends, Rachel learns some men will only change their ways when faced with the realisation that they are not immortal. She figures out a way of convince Frank he is seriously ill and needs to sort his life out.

What follows is a fast flowing story of a man who even when surrounded by temptation, mostly provided by his boss/friend/drinking buddy Bill (Nick Moran), and with the help of the obligatory love interest in the form a waitress Flora (Also played by Orla O’rourke), he learns to appreciate life and the those around him and of course start to rebuild his relationships with his family.

I really enjoyed the movie. Most british comedies don’t entertain me. Especially when they try to be as non-British as possible. Down Dog is funny and entertaining and even though the focus is about the relationship between a father and his son, I think it would entertain most audiences….of an adult persuasion anyway! Nobody wants to teach their kids the words “Robocock” and “Cumcumber”!

In the fairness of honesty I could only think of two things that I didn’t like about the movie.
Firstly was that there was no positive dad characters at all. Even when Rachel is speaking to her friends all of them had negative stories bout the fathers of their kids so I think that’s a shame at least one dad couldnt already have it together without the threat of death and secondly (and this is just me) it really there me that Orla O’Rourke plays 3 characters! 🙂 She’s a talented actress and certainly played them well but I spent half the film wondering if it was her or not in all three roles.

Overall it was an enjoyable feel good film that I would recommend to friends…which is why I’m blogging about it!
The question I ask whenever I review a movie is this. Was I enttertained? After all thats is what the medioum of cinema is there to do. In the case of Down Dog the answer was yes.

This is OUT NOW so if you’re sick of hearing about “Mr Grey” and his “Singular” tastes, then check Down Dog at your local multiplex!

Do you have a film you think I should review? Old or new?

Many thanks to the director Andres Dussan for giving me the opportunity to preview the film before its release (Don’t I feel special!) and as always..thanks for reading.
L